I had an interesting response to the blog I wrote this week, in which I said, during a round up of blogs I’d enjoyed in May, that there is an Ofsted ‘charade’ with which many people are disillusioned. Sean Harford, Ofsted’s Head of Schools, whom I’ve met and had long discussions, and have always found to be an all-round good egg, thought that I meant that the meetings which he has set up with many of those who blog about Ofsted were a charade. I don’t think this at all. So I’ll be really clear. I can’t over emphasise how much I appreciate the time which Sean – and others within Ofsted, notably David Brown and Paul Garvey (and Mike Cladingbowl before he moved elsewhere) – have taken to listen to an engage with those of us who have made the time to offer what I hope is constructive criticism of Ofsted and the inspection process. Which brings me back to the idea of Ofsted inspections being a charade. I’ll be very clear. There is abundant evidence that a visit from Ofsted is largely a pointless exercise given the weight which Not Even Wrong RAISEonline data carries before anyone has even entered a school building. Evidence from people such as Geoff Barton, JordyJax and Tom Sherrington is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what happens when Ofsted Inspectors visit. Policy Exchange’s report Who Watches the Watchmen made it clear how Ofsted’s Overall Effectiveness grade is driven by Achievement of Pupils, which in turn dictates the Quality of Teaching grade. Whilst David Brown, in particular, is always on hand to point out that, in some - extremely rare - cases, Quality of Teaching is graded differently, at least 98% of the time, QoT = OE = AoP. Here is Watchsted’s analysis of the latest 100 Primary and Secondary inspections:

Here are the last three inspection Primary reports published by Ofsted at the time of writing, and one Secondary:

And it’s always the same, with one or two – highly unusual – exceptions. As Tom Sherrington says, “The data delusions that underpin RAISEOnline hold sway where they have no right to and the complex truth of how good a school is continues to be reduced to the absurd simplicity of two or three data points. At the end, we get told that School X is Good. School Y is Outstanding. School Z Requires Improvement. It’s like we’ve been overrun by The Emperor’s New Scientologists and Homeopaths but everyone’s too scared to say anything.”Geoff Barton (who became Executive Headteacher at a local Middle School as well as running his St Edmond’s Secondary) has the dubious distinction of having an Ofsted report in which QoT isn’t the same as AoP (QoT was held to require improvement rather than slavishly follow AoP’s Inadequate rating). The school was unusual, and as he says, “At every opportunity we hammered home – and worried that we were overstating – the distinctiveness of the middle school context. “We don’t fit a classic two-tier pattern,” we kept pointing out. “Progress has to be measured from where children are when they join us in Year 4 to where they finish at the end of Year 8. Please don’t just focus on Year 6 attainment data.” But that, essentially, is what happened – an obsessive focus on KS2 attainment, a lack of appreciation of the school’s distinctive context, a reluctance to engage in meaningful dialogue.” JordyJax’s latest blog is perhaps the most stark of the examples I’ll use. As Deputy Head in a previously Outstanding Pupil Referral Unit, she found that after a first day which seemed positive, day two of their inspection was not a happy one. “LI and HMI now had a plethora of data which conflicted and confused. Holed up in a little room they came to a very different conclusion from the previous day and despite judging behaviour and safety ( our core purpose) as good….the data told a different tale……RI. Now there is a lot more to our story because RI reverses every judgement……teaching and learning, management, governance…..you name it and it is all crap! Even though nothing less than good was observed, ‘bad’ data trumped the lot!!!” My own experience of Ofsted judgements is that schools in which I have worked have had Inspection results based purely on the data for the previous year’s Year 6. In a couple of cases these have been downgraded dramatically, and in couple of cases they have jumped up grades. Two schools in which I have taught have gone from being good or outstanding, down to RI, and back up to good or outstanding within ridiculously short periods of time. In neither school had very much changed other than the children taking SATs at the end of Year 6. This realisation is what drove me into my current role, and it’s what drives my writing about data now. When schools are judged on data, and data alone, it makes a mockery of all the triple marking and evidencing and form filling and tracking and assessing and extended curriculum provision and sports and drama and international connections and field trips and residentials and value which schools actually add to the lives of the pupils they work with. And that’s the charade. Schools which are Outstanding in every single category have data which looks like this:

And I know, because I am lucky enough to work in one. But I’ve also worked in schools have seen this change, based purely on the cohort taking external assessments. I'm also experienced enough to know that the next time the inspectors call, if we look like the data below, we’d be rated inadequate, as were Castle Acre Church of England VC Primary School whose data this is:

And there you see QoT = OE = AoP. From a teacher's perspective, I can’t think of a better term for this other than ‘charade’. I’d appreciate your thoughts in the comments below.

Indeed. Now that the veracity of lesson observations has been debunked, Ofsted appear to be (operationally) in shock. I agree that those at the top (well, the social media active ones) appear to be decent, committed people. But this isn't enough. The grades of schools appear to change so rapidly now, that either a school's operations are very fragile, or Ofsted has no idea what a good school really is.....(a bit like coasting schools, methinks). Basically, the accountability system is still having negative unintended consequences on schools and teachers (and, therefore, probably on the kids). New accountability system required - abolish the fear...nurture instead.

[Keep up the good work, Jack].

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Quirky Teacher

3/6/2015 11:41:18 pm

I'm not so sure that judgements based purely on data are such a bad thing.

Given that many primary educators despise all forms of testing and consider tests to be psychologically damaging, or too high stakes, or that they demand that children concentrate too hard on English and Maths when they could be having more fun in Art, I get the feeling that basing judgements on anything other than AoP would give tacit permission for teachers to prioritise aspects of education that should not be prioritised (assuming that parents send their children to primary school so that they can learn to read, write and add up).

Additionally, if Ofsted included in its judgement how 'rounded' the education was for children, then we'd be reading blogs from worn out teachers who were having to take children on endless trips and run clubs every single day. If Ofsted included in its judgement how children's mental and social well being were being developed, then we'd be reading blogs about how teachers were having nervous breakdowns because they were having to provide evidence that they were spending lunchtimes giving counselling sessions for children (plus record keeping of outcomes).

So, the old adage 'be careful what you wish for' seems to hold true here. The fact is that no system is perfect, but I would say that this system is the least imperfect of the possible systems you put forward. For me, it actually feels a bit of a relief that my own wish to run a classroom that is highly academic and helps ALL children achieve in English and Maths (I also do some really good music lessons too!) will be what Ofsted is looking for, and that evidence will obviously be in those SATs results.

One final thing, I thought that Ofsted look at progress overall, in addition to final SATs results? So this does provide a school with the opportunity to argue that a tricky cohort has done well?

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Jack Marwood

4/6/2015 06:35:34 am

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to comment here, QT. I enjoy your blog and I haven’t found time to comment, but I will make the effort to do so. (If any readers haven’t read https://thequirkyteacher.wordpress.com/ you really should. It’ll make you think).

So, to your points. I understand the concerns you have about attitudes within Primary towards tests. Characterising those of us who question the current position as ‘despising tests’ or believing that they are ‘psychologically damaging’ and so on, sets up a straw man. That’s certainly not my position. I think that tests are useful to assess core knowledge (See http://icingonthecakeblog.weebly.com/blog/using-data-properly-ditch-the-cargo-cult-data-for-actual-data1 and other Using Data Properly posts), but I’ve drawn together lots of the arguments about the problem’s created by elevating out of date, Not Even Wrong test score data to the position it currently holds.

It terms of 'be careful what you wish for' ,I’ve articulated my thoughts as to how we should assess schools (http://icingonthecakeblog.weebly.com/blog/its-time-for-ofsted-to-inspect-without-test-score-data). We need to hold schools accountable, but that does not have to mean using Test Scores and little else, as I’ve said above. As Tom Sherrington says, ‘It’s like we’ve been overrun by The Emperor’s New Scientologists and Homeopaths but everyone’s too scared to say anything.’

I’m going to pull rank somewhat by talking about the Ofsted Inspections I’ve been through. You haven’t said whether you have had the joy of an inspection as yet – do let me know if you have. My experience is of teams arriving at my school with very clear preconceptions, which have then been corroborated by whatever they can find. As I said above,’ Two schools in which I have taught have gone from being good or outstanding, down to RI, and back up to good or outstanding within ridiculously short periods of time.’ In both cases teaching was held to be whatever grade the data said it was.

That cannot be a true reflection of the teaching unless you firmly believe the Teacher Input = Pupil Output fallacy. It will be interesting to see what you think once you’ve seen just how variable children’s test scores can be, and how little they relate to your teaching.

For your final point, regarding Ofsted looking at progress overall and whether this provides a school with the opportunity to argue that a tricky cohort has done well. The honest answer is,’Good luck with that’. Inspection teams clearly have some leeway, but that comes down to the luck of draw, as described by various commentators on the inspection experience.

So, thanks very much for this. I look forward to reading your further thoughts.

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LGP24

4/6/2015 02:59:33 am

"assuming that parents send their children to primary school so that they can learn to how to read, write and add up" - absolutely agree with this. This IS what parents assume is happening and for those of us who find out that it's not, it is absolutely devastating - for our child and for us as parents.

Results should affect the ofsted rating - if children aren't achieving then the teaching is not working. There are primary schools out there achieving great results with very challenging cohorts. (And the children are happy). Find them and see how they do it - that's my heartfelt message for all head teachers. Anything less is failing children and nobody wants that.

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Jack Marwood

4/6/2015 06:12:47 am

Thanks for this LGP24 - I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my blog.
The trouble with the view which you've articulated - that 'if children aren't achieving then the teaching is not working' - is that this is not necessarily true. Teachers do the teaching, children do the learning. They don't always reflect each other. I've written a lot about this, and if you haven't read my other work (http://icingonthecakeblog.weebly.com/blog/seven-fallacies-about-teaching is a good place to start), I recommend you do.

Good post. I'd agree that in the inspection I was involved with last year QoT was capped to AoP. The argument went: the impact of teacher quality could only be seen by achievement, therefore, if achievement wasn't good enough it must mean that the teaching quality was no good. The inspectors went further and said that although there was evidence of strong leadership because AoP was still not good enough leadership must also be capped to the AoP rating. So, QoT and Leadership were directly correlated to AoP. With this approach inspectors didn't need to come and visit the school, we could have just sent them a spreadsheet of data.

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Jan

5/6/2015 02:32:49 am

I agree absolutely with your points and would urge you to pursue your debate. I recall being a DHT when Ofsted was doing its first inspections in 1993/4. My primary school had a 4 week short notice (well short for then!) inspection which was part of the training programme so we had double the number of inspectors as half were completing their training. I was on the cusp of leaving to take up my first headship. I took on a school which had its first inspection three months later. I remember thinking then that if Ofsted were as effective as its publicity claimed it would do its self out of a job in no time. Twenty two years on, and counting, one does have to ask are schools significantly better? Are children and young people better learners? Ofsted's definition of good or better remains narrowly defined to academic achievement which in itself harks back to 17 century principles rather than forward to a brave new tomorrow. I don't have the statistics to hand but wonder if the percentage of schools judged to be 'not good enough' is significantly less now than a decade or two decades back? There's certainly been a huge amount of funding poured into Ofsted and I wonder how much it represents good value for money?

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Me?
I work in primary education and have done for ten years. I also have children
in primary school. I love teaching, but I think that school is a thin layer of icing on top of a very big cake, and that the misunderstanding of test scores is killing the love of teaching and learning.